Zelda
I’m still not quite sure how the archival research here applies vis á vis digital curation for artifact creation…thoughts?
The question pops up in the private chat room for my online class, and my soul sighs. Friday night, and I’m in my parents’ basement apartment, doing homework.
Why did I do this to myself?
Why did I decide to get my Master’s in Library Science online from Bliss University? Because my mom thought it would be a good idea, that’s why, and I’m a sucker for being a good daughter. It was supposed to be the perfect match. Home, the library, and me.
It’s not that I don’t love the library. I do.
I want to be an excellent librarian. I want to be more than an excellent librarian, actually.
I want to do something important, and something strikes me as pretty important about collecting all our knowledge for future generations.
I could move to Washington, D.C. and be an archivist for NASA, slotting all that incredible data into homes for other people to access one day while they’re researching things like space and time.
A little shiver shoots up my spine when I think about it.
At least, it normally would.
For one thing, I can’t stop thinking bout that photo.
In the picture, the starlet’s long legs are wrapped tightly around the waist of a man who has to be fifteen years older than she is, and the way her eyes are squeezed shut against the flash of the camera says one thing. Her body says another. She doesn’t care about being photographed.
I go back to my favorite gossip blog and scroll through the last two days’ worth of posts until I find it. I’ve been imagining this picture exactly as it is, but looking at it sends a buzz of excitement through my core.
He’s older. I’ve never thought about older men that way, but it seems so forbidden and sexy in this moment that I can’t stand it. So reckless. So dangerous. He’s married. She’s not.
I shouldn’t be this turned on. This hot and bothered.
That celebrity, with that man—she’s more free than I’ll ever be. A couple of sloppy kisses outside frat parties can never measure up to whatever it is they’re drunk with.
Alcohol. Money. Each other.
I want to feel that way.
But I can’t derail my entire life. I’ve been careful, so careful, after…
The chat tone sounds again, insistently, and I click back to the chat. We’re supposed to be collaborating on this “artifact” for our final portfolios, but my heart isn’t in it.
The others in my group are moving on to the study group portion of the chat.
Why anyone wants to schedule these for Friday night is beyond me, unless they’re leading lives as boring and predictable as mine is and the fact that it’s Friday night makes no difference.
There’s a little thrill in my chest. Friday night, back when I was in school, used to mean all kinds of possibilities.
Once classes were over, people were full-on into making plans for the evening.
That was my favorite part—the back-and-forth on which bar to go to, which band to see play, which guys to meet up with.
None of it ever panned out the way I thought it might, though.
Nobody ever swept me off my feet on the dance floor or made me think I could marry this guy in the middle of a crowded bar.
And even when they came close, there was always that nagging voice in the back of my head.
Remember how dangerous, it always said. Don’t forget.
They’re divvying up the portions of reading we’re about to discuss, and I get a knot in the pit of my stomach.
Normally I don’t mind talking about techniques, methodologies, strategies, research…
if I truly hated it, I’d have dropped out of the program after the first semester. I don’t hate it. It’s only today.
It’s today, and that picture from the gossip blog that’s been haunting me since Wednesday.
It’s the fact that my best friend Carly went to some exciting erotic art show, and I was left sitting behind the desk at circulation, left to wander around, coaxing elderly patrons off the computers and tearing them away from their Facebook games.
Then I came home to my parents’ house, where I have a little apartment in the basement. It’s a sweet place with its own entrance, but still…I go home to my mom’s and dad’s, and I go to bed only to wake up the next day and do it all over again.
It’s very safe.
It’s very predictable.
It’s not stifling. Of course, it isn’t. This is a great life.
It’s a great life…
My cell phone buzzes with an incoming text, and I snatch it off the surface of the desk next to me.
Carly: What are you doing, hot stuff?
Her message puts a smile on my face.
Zelda: Study group :(
Carly: Ditch it. Let’s go out.
Zela: I really shouldn’t. It’s our big project, and we have to go over the reading.
Carly: SCREW THE READING!!!
I laugh out loud at that message, and I’m still laughing when another one comes in.
Carly: I want to go out. You missed the art show and it’s FRIDAY NIGHT. LIVE A LITTLE
I shouldn’t. I should stay here and discuss last week’s reading assignment.
It’s the last semester before I graduate.
I should finish strong, then apply for jobs, and be a good daughter.
Be a good person. Be the kind of person who never masturbates while she’s thinking about a picture from a gossip website.
Zelda: YOU WIN
Carly: I’M PICKING YOU UP IN TEN